


Shades of Sweet

by cerebel



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Restaurant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-02
Updated: 2013-03-02
Packaged: 2017-12-04 01:07:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/704726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerebel/pseuds/cerebel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki: a temperamental chef, difficult to work with. Bruce: the calmest motherfucker this side of the Mississippi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shades of Sweet

It’s seven months ago, and Bruce Banner is sitting uneasily across from one of the richest men in the world. 

“How’ve you been, Bruce?” is how he opens the conversation, and Bruce makes the required noises, hems and haws, and Tony takes the hint, gets right to it. “I’ve decided to get back into the restaurant business.”

“No,” is Bruce’s immediate response. 

“You’ll like it,” Tony insists. “French fusion.” 

“No.”

“Incredible location, beautiful place...” 

“I’m not looking for work.” 

“The cook, you’ll -- well, you’ll find him -- he’s interesting. Father’s twenty-fifth in line for the British throne or something, and -- can you imagine having that job, just calculating out family trees?” 

Bruce shrugs. “Wouldn’t be so bad.” 

“Says the man who’s worked in a bottling factory in Rio.” 

“That wasn’t so bad either.” 

“This guy isn’t so bad.” 

Bruce’s eyes narrow.

Tony stumbles over his next words. “I mean, that is to say... things just slide off of you, right? Like off of a duck.” 

“Tony.” 

“He made Jane Foster cry like a little girl.” 

Bruce presses his palm into his forehead. “Why didn’t you fire him?”

“He’s a genius, really. A better cook than Jane Foster is hostess, or maitre de or whatever she was. He does magic with food. You should try it.” 

“She’s brilliant. She doesn’t deserve something like that.” 

“No kidding. I got her another job, it’s fine, she’s happy as a clam. And dating this guy’s brother, as it turns out -- she got a prince out of the deal -- but that’s neither here nor there.” Tony’s eyes narrow. “Unless it _is_ here or there. Do you want a prince? I can find one.” 

“No, I don’t, Tony. I don’t want a prince.” 

“Your loss.” Tony leans back. “So, can you start on Tuesday?” 

~*~

“Loki,” drawls Tony. Somehow he doesn’t seem to have as much presence as usual against the slender, pale cook dressed in a shade of white that doesn’t suit him in the least. Maybe it’s all the steam in the kitchen, diminishing Tony’s usual charisma.

“Get out.” 

Loki snaps this, absorbed as he is in the contents of the plate in front of him. He finishes tucking in what seems to be some kind of fish, next to slices of blood orange. 

“Meet your new head waiter,” says Tony, giving Bruce a shove towards the counter. “Bye.” 

Loki fixes him with a gaze of the deepest suspicion. He forks a slice of orange and a slice of fish, viciously, and holds it out to Bruce. 

Readily, Bruce takes the fork and eats the bite. 

“Name the fish,” says Loki.

Bruce rolls the mouthful around his tongue. “Cod,” he says, answering the test, he’s pretty sure, correctly. Then says, “A little sweet for me.” The oranges, he means. His own version of a test: failing to compliment a dish right off the bat. 

Loki fails to go into hysterics. In fact, he looks faintly satisfied. “You’ll do.” 

~*~

The hysterics come later. 

“It’s raw!” he screams. “ _Raw_! Congratulations on your fresh diploma, Miss Tracey, and the complete and utter lack of ability it has yielded to you!” -- This being the most tame part of a rant that begins and ends with the dire and disastrous consequences of serving raw chicken. 

Bruce tips the dish into the trash can, and clears his throat, quietly. 

Loki stops mid-word. Turns to Bruce. “ _What?_ ” 

Bruce doesn’t flinch. “Table six,” he says, mildly. “Will they get their food soon, or should I tell Natasha Romanov at table seven that we nearly served raw chicken to her neighbors?” 

Natasha Romanov. The most famous and vicious food critic in the city. Last year, Tony tried to sleep with her to get a favorable review for his new darling restaurant. It went out of business a month later.

“Natasha Romanov?” Loki inquires, his voice falsely gentle. A string ready to snap. _Why did no one tell me_ , is the unspoken question.

“She’s not under that name,” says Bruce. “But I recognized her.” Stroke recognized, and parried; see, Loki, you wouldn’t even have known if I wasn’t here. 

Loki’s eyes spark. “You, on chicken,” he snaps, to a different sous chef. “You,” to the unfortunate Miss Tracy, “five minutes contemplating your sins in the closet, and then decide if you want to quit in disgrace or redeem yourself. You, _fresh_ on the fish dishes.” He holds his hand out to Bruce, and Bruce smoothly tears off table 7’s ticket and passes it along. 

Unspoken communication already. My oh my. 

~*~

“I have never seen anyone do that,” insists Darcy Lewis, bartender. “Never, ever.” 

~*~

“You _were_ the missing ingredient,” pronounces Tony Stark. 

~*~

And here we are seven months later, with new chefs who can’t tell if _yes, once he took Loki out, dragged him by the ankle, true story, you can still see the marks in the alleyway_ is reality or tall tale. New, yes, because the entire staff (minus Bruce and two or three others) has turned over once or twice since then. 

Loki is … difficult.

Which is why this is so surprising. 

An old man with steely reserve (entirely unlike Loki) and an old woman with a kind smile (entirely unlike Loki) and a young man with a booming voice (entirely unlike Loki) have been at table 14 for the last forty-five minutes, taking obvious if slightly nervous pleasure in the meal. Family, Bruce thinks, able to notice if not to navigate social circles of tension and love. 

“Young man,” says the woman, “my name is Frigga, and my son Loki is the chef here. I don’t suppose he could spare a moment for us?”

\-- And this is what floors Bruce. He doesn’t waver for an instant from mild and friendly and helpful, but this has utterly blindsided him. Why didn’t he know? Why hadn’t he been made aware? 

“You know what,” says Bruce, “I’m not sure he knows you’re here. I’ll go ahead and tell him, shall I?” 

“Please do.” 

He pulls Loki aside in the kitchen. The chef twitches with manic energy, on the high that gets him through the energy drain of a dinner service every single night. He is annoyed at the interruption, and especially annoyed that he must be pulled away from the kitchen.

“ _What_?”

“There’s a woman named Frigga out there,” says Bruce, “with a husband and on, who says she’s your mother, and she wants to talk to you.” He reports this deadpan. And, again, is somewhat astonished by the look of blood draining from Loki’s already pale skin. 

Over these months, Bruce has received the overwhelming impression that there are something like several feral cats constantly jostling for control in Loki’s mind. That Loki is sensitive, which is ill-disguised, and that his ego is a problem, and that he pours everything that he has of himself into making his food absolutely and utterly perfect, because there is no other perfection that he is capable of achieving.

Now, Bruce has the impression that all of these feral cats are suddenly united, all in a singular desire to get out of there as fast as possible. Perhaps even quit his job, if necessary.

Frigga and her husband and son -- Loki’s brother? They look nothing alike -- seemed kind. But Bruce himself knows that doesn’t have to mean anything. 

“All right,” says Loki.

Bruce brings Loki out, and lingers by his elbow like a bodyguard. He notes the stiffness with which Loki exchanges smiles, and the exchange of platitudes and expected greetings that is delivered with the enthusiasm of a prisoner intoning his final words. Bruce touches Loki’s elbow partway through and says, “I think there’s a problem in the kitchen,” nodding towards the double doors like there’s a signal only he and Loki know how to interpret. 

Loki takes the excuse like a drowning man takes a rope, and flees.

~*~

Restaurant is empty after-hours, every customer long gone, even the Odinson family, which lingered in the hopes of presumably seeing Loki again. 

And here is Loki with a bottle of wine, curled up on the end of the couch in his office.

Bruce pauses by the door. 

“Have you eaten?” he asks. It wasn’t what he meant to say, which was some version of _good night_ , perhaps with a charitable _I’ll text you if they’re lying in wait outside_ added in. 

Loki glances up, sharply, and shakes his head.

“I know this place,” says Bruce. 

Loki brings the wine. Bruce leads them four blocks over and one alleyway up, through the back stairs and into a small, cozy apartment crammed with books. 

“You know a place?” inquires Loki, eyebrows raised.

Bruce shrugs. “It didn’t start as a bad pick-up line,” he says. “The Morrocan place on the corner is closed Sunday nights. I forgot.” 

Loki helps himself to the contents of Bruce’s cabinets, producing a glass for them both. Bruce sips, Loki gulps. 

“Where did you learn to lock your passion away?” Loki asks, minutes later, elbows on the counter as Bruce prods some stir fry around a pan. Loki doesn’t sound accusing. If anything, the question is wistful. 

Bruce doesn’t want to tell him. Sure, it would take a prison the fortitude of the one Bruce built for himself to hold in Loki’s tempestuous nature. Sure, Loki might want it. But there’s something about the utter, wild freedom of Loki’s anger that draws Bruce in. 

“Lot of places,” he demurs. “Have you wanted to ask that question for seven months?” 

Loki shakes his head. “Up until tonight, I thought you didn’t have any passion.” 

What changed tonight, is what Bruce wants to ask. 

“Cold parents, huh?” he asks, instead. 

“Regal,” confirms Loki. “I swore I wouldn’t live an empty life, like them.” 

Bruce shrugs. “Maybe empty’s not so bad.” Not that he would know. 

Loki’s face has a peculiar look on it, so Bruce hastens to change the subject.

The wine is long gone, the second bottle too, when Loki finally rises. They haven’t spoken much, it seems, or perhaps they haven’t spoken _about_ much. 

“How will you get home?” asks Bruce. It’s three in the morning.

“I won’t,” he says. “I sleep on the sofa at the restaurant, more often.” 

“Stay here.” 

Probably one of the worst impulses Bruce has ever had. He regrets it immediately, and then miraculously un-regrets it, as it results in Loki’s slim form sliding into his lap and kissing him, somewhat drunkenly, very desperately. This, he will have time enough to regret later. 

~*~

Loki is long-limbed and eager; Bruce calms him. Incredible, the feeling of soothing Loki; the calm that Bruce pretends at, all the time, leaks into Loki _truly_. He shivers, and the touch of Bruce’s hand stills him -- he thrashes, in want, and Bruce murmurs in his ear and makes him go lax. 

It’s … magic. It’s creating calm from nothing at all, and it makes Bruce feel like magician.

And, even more miraculously, a calm Loki manages to soothe Bruce right back.

~*~

In the morning, he wakes up to Loki pulling him out of bed and into the shower. Mumbled complaints are hushed away, and Loki sucks him off under water like warm rainfall. 

~*~

The next day, a restaurant-wide meeting. Loki has six new dishes to add onto the menu. 

Tony Stark is there. Samples the desert first, and makes a kind of _hunh_ noise. 

“Orgasm in your mouth?” asks Loki, dryly.

“No,” says Tony. “Orgasm pretty much everywhere.” 

One of them is -- fish, and blood orange. Bruce frowns, but takes a bite of it anyway, aware of Loki’s scrutiny. It’s... it’s different. Sea bass, not cod. 

“Loki,” he says, and he touches Loki’s arm, pulls him aside. “That was... perfect.” 

Quiet triumph in Loki’s eyes.

They make out in the supply closet before dinner service that night.


End file.
